Who Knew
by kylie1206
Summary: Story from RP Journal. Leonard McCoy & Tonia Barrows were childhood sweethearts. But like with most first loves, it fell apart. Angsty lookback from Leonard's POV.


Another little story from my roleplay journal and one of my verses. Basic overview; Leonard McCoy and Tonia Barrows were childhood sweethearts. But when time came for him to go to Ole Miss, she knew her place was with Starfleet. Done from a song meme prompt and the song is 'Who Knew' by Pink.

* * *

_When someone said count your blessings now_

_'fore they're long gone_

_I guess I just didn't know how_

_I was all wrong_

_They knew better_

_Still you said forever_

_And ever_

_Who knew?_

Sometimes when he lay back, his eyes closed, mind wandering back to a time when life was simple, he could see her face as clearly as if she were there with him. Holding him, laughing, her eyes bright and full of love just like they used to be.

A teenage romance. Nothing could touch them, nothing could take away how he felt for her. He saw his entire future mapped out with her. They'd marry, have children - and they'd have their mothers eyes that lit up everytime they turned on their devilish charm - and he'd be a Doctor, with his own practice. The only this he ever missed in his grand plan, his grand fantasy where he lived his dream, was iher/i dream. Partially, he never wanted to acknowledge the fact that she felt she had nowhere to go but to the skies. Acknowledging that would have meant accepting that there would come a time when they had difficult choices to make, potential arguments and worse; a break up.

He could still hear the shouting, feel the sting of every single word born out of anger. He didn't understand, she didn't. They were crumbling, breaking, and he had no way of fixing it. He couldn't go to Space. He couldn't live a life of fear every single day. He couldn't convince her of her worth, of how smart she really was and that she didn't need some grading to show her that. He'd never felt so useless before.

He'd wanted to hate her, the night before she left to go study at the academy. Part of him did already. Despite their not talking for 4 days before, he still drove when night fell to meet her, to fulfil a cliché by throwing little pebbles at her window until she opened it, let him make his way to her room to make love to her and cry himself to sleep long after her own form had drifted off in the safety of his arms. He whispered sweet nothings in her ear until the tears became too much. When he left her that morning he slid a solitary gift into her bag in the hopes it would somehow make her remember him and come back to him. A necklace intended to swing low, settle near her heart; just where he wanted to always be.

He remembered the first night he spent with Jocelyn for all the wrong reasons. Every touch, every kiss; it made him feel like he was cheating on her, despite not seeing her in so long that the time apart made him feel numb. He'd gone past the stage of hurt; it was bitterness, anger and guilt. Every time he looked into the eyes of the woman he would marry, he would have a beautiful child with, and told her he loved her, he felt a pang of guilt low in his stomach.

He still loved Tonia more.

Four months pregnant, he remembered her screaming at him as she threw his wallet to the ground, waving a small scrap of paper about in accusation. iHer/i photo. One of the few he had ever dared to keep. It lay buried underneath a photo of himself and his wife. A memory he tried to bury under new ones but, like the photo would do, the memory came back to haunt him on occasion, making him escape into himself until dragged back out by the reality he now found himself in.

The most painful thing had been Jocelyn tearing up the photograph, scattering the pieces about the floor and trampling over them. Breaking his heart and trampling over every brittle shard, just like Tonia had done years before. He'd waited until she had fallen into a restless sleep in his arms until he slid out of bed to try to salvage the image, hating himself every second he did so for the intensity of his need to do that.

His entire life read like a disaster story. He lost the woman he loved when too young to understand how to fix it. He settled for a life with a woman that he loved, but knew would never be enough. The death of his father made him spiral further down, trying to find the answers, the meaning to his existence in the bottom of whatever bottle he could hold nearest. He knew escaping into the bottle was pushing Jocelyn away from him, and yet he couldn't find the will to pull himself out of his slump. Not even his love for his daughter made him feel like he was worthy of the life he led. He just knew he'd end up hurting her one day too.

The day he returned home to find his wife in bed with another man had been the final straw to break him. He'd left the house in a daze, ran away until he found himself the one place he never wanted to be; Starfleet. He could try and convince himself that it was the only option left but he knew, deep down in a place he would never acknowledge, that he went there because his first thought had been of iher/i.

He'd lay there in his cramped bed in the too small for comfort room at the academy and think of her. His eyes slid shut, blocking out the world around him. He hated himself whenever he did so. Did she still think of him too? Did she still hurt like he did? He lived in a memory just to get by, and he hated iher/i for giving him nothing but memories to live in.

He'd dared sometimes to imagine seeing her again. Hoped that he'd be able to move past his bitterness to take her back into his arms. To feel her warm embrace just one more time. Would he still get the same butterflies with every touch? Would it feel the same to kiss her just one more time? Their last kiss, much as he cherished it, he would always crave more. A deep ache, a need for just one more touch, one more look, one more smile, one more kiss.

She slapped him the first time they saw each other in over ten years and to say it threw his imaginings somewhat off balance would be an understatement. Even with their shared words of anger, of hurt, he felt more complete the moment he held her in his arms than he had done in all those years before. His head span, his body shook and he felt like an awkward teenager all over again. But he couldn't control his anger like he wanted to. He couldn't stop himself from expressing all of the years of pent up hurt that he knew he would have never lived through had had had her by his side through it all. Like it should have been.

He'd known better than to expect an emotional, loving reunion. The childish innocence he'd had all those years before had him hope for something more. It made him ache to know that all they would share now, were memories.


End file.
